..to flak or not to flak....

[Grayson02sept1980]

I have a IXc now with standart tower #1 (one flak) and the air umbrella etc really gets annoying as one can not even reload a single torp from the externals without being disturbed by the flyboys.

Is it worth getting a #3 tower with all that flak and "waste" the men as flak crew when they could work as "Maschinist" or "Torpedoschütze" ? (your oppinion? experience - from your point of view)

After some tests around St.George Canal:

I have also experience, though having the flak stations (in a test run with the #3 tower) maned, not all men firing.
(all have Flak "experience" though I cheatet a bit with SH3Commander assigning experienced Crewman with flak experience )
- the station was label 100% operational (green bar 100% full)
- the WO also has Flak experience so for sure 100% flak
Only the Quad fired. (thats only half of all the flak)

Do only Petty Officers (German: Maat - Maate(pl)) fire flak guns?
or what went wrong... cause when I maned the station with three Petty Officers and a crew man (all Flakgunners ) they fired all and brought a bomber down before it was even close enough to fire succesfull at us let alone drop a single DC/bomb

I will do further tests with "specialized" crewman - this is one thing SH3Commander seems to enable for further realism... I have not found the green bar increase but you can make sure to have at least one higher experienced crewman assigned to the station by double clicking as it seems... a slight advantage nevertheless

[flakmonkey]

If your running stock then it makes sense since you have a good chance of shooting down planes with no or very little damage to your boat/crew.

If your running GWX then i really wouldnt bother with heavy flak, your specialised flak crew will probably all be killed on the first encounter with a plane anyway, planes are mean in GWX!

+Crew dont have to be qualified to use the flak guns though so i guess you could get the tower upgrade and use unskilled crew to man the guns, even a fully qualified crew will very rarely hit anything so why waste the qualifications, go for more usefull quals like torp/engineer/repair.

++Just make sure your watch officer has a flak qualification since that will affect any flak crew too.

[3Jane]

I think it's a game bug which causes one or more of the flak guns not to fire. As I remember it, with multiple flak positions you have to manually 'visit' each position to make them all work.
As for actually using them, only if the water is too shallow to dive or some other reason why you can't dive. Also, if the aircraft isn't spotted until it is fairly close. By that time there won't be enough time to dive fully before it attacks.

[Brag]

I don't bother with extra flack in GWX

[SmokinTep]

Me neither. Flak=useless......

[Gezoes]

I've seen the guns not firing from time to time.

I'm guessing it's late in the war. I would take a quad perhaps... but that's it.

Bad weather is your friend now. Try reloading at night in bad weather.

Good thing our crew can't be washed off deck!

[Keelbuster]

I kinda like the sound of the quad + 2x flakswhilling firing. It sounds like Tommy is catching hell. Unfortunately he is not. AI flak gunners systematically miss. To shoot down a plane you need to man a gun personally and hit the plane's engines (all other parts appear to be invulnerable). And the quad flak is the best for personal gunning, so get the upgrade that includes that one.

[Keelbuster]

Originally Posted by Gezoes

I've seen the guns not firing from time to time.

I'm guessing it's late in the war. I would take a quad perhaps... but that's it.

Bad weather is your friend now. Try reloading at night in bad weather.

Good thing our crew can't be washed off deck!

As a realism catch, I force myself to reload in calm weather (the test being if the gun crew can man the gun) and all-stop. This makes it tense because depending on where you are, it might be interrupted. There's a quirk I've found - if you are forced to dive while the external is being loaded, two things can happen. If the torpedo is less than half-way loaded, then the torpedo goes back into the external store and can be reloaded again when you surface (sometimes it even carries on from where it left off!). If the torpedo is more than halfway loaded, the torpedo is lost - I guess the boys just shove it overboard.

Originally Posted by 3Jane

I think it's a game bug which causes one or more of the flak guns not to fire. As I remember it, with multiple flak positions you have to manually 'visit' each position to make them all work.
As for actually using them, only if the water is too shallow to dive or some other reason why you can't dive. Also, if the aircraft isn't spotted until it is fairly close. By that time there won't be enough time to dive fully before it attacks.

3Jane is right: the way to positively assure all the flak stations fire is to toggle between each one and the bridge. Hit F4, then the first flak station, then F4 again and the next flak station, etc, until you've gone to each one. That should do the trick!

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Albrecht Von Hesse

3Jane is right: the way to positively assure all the flak stations fire is to toggle between each one and the bridge. Hit F4, then the first flak station, then F4 again and the next flak station, etc, until you've gone to each one. That should do the trick!

That's correct....but to be honest (especially in GWX2,0 latter years)....the odds are really stacked against you in terms of air attack.....just as they were in RL

[Kipparikalle]

Due to the fact that I am very exprienced AA-gunner on GWX, I usually find myself trying to seek for planes.

But after 43, even I rather crash-dive than stay on surface.
Rockets are way too fast even for me to catch, and return to sender


Others probaly know what to do in air-attack.

[papa_smurf]

Same here too - GWX2.0 and flak do not mix